School superintendent finalist to revisit Oak Ridge

The Oak Ridge Board of Education interviewed three candidates for the schools superintendent position this week — and one of those is expected to make a return visit on Monday.

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By Beverly Majors

Oakridger - Oak Ridge, TN

By Beverly Majors

Posted Mar. 28, 2013 at 9:00 PM
Updated Mar 28, 2013 at 9:20 PM

By Beverly Majors

Posted Mar. 28, 2013 at 9:00 PM
Updated Mar 28, 2013 at 9:20 PM

Oak Ridge, Tenn.

The Oak Ridge Board of Education interviewed three candidates for the schools superintendent position this week — and one of those is expected to make a return visit on Monday.

School Board Chairman Keys Fillauer said the board decided to invite back Bruce Borchers, superintendent of the Rockwood School District in Eureka, Mo.

“All three are excellent,” Fillauer told The Oak Ridger on Wednesday. “We could take any one of them.”

The top choice of the three after the initial interview was Borchers. “But,” the school board chair added, “we are not eliminating the other two.”

Fillauer said Borchers and his family will revisit next week.

“They will get to see more of the city and we will learn more about them,” he said.

Borchers, as well as Dale Lynch, superintendent of the Hamblen County Schools in Morristown, and Keith Rowland, superintendent of Shenandoah County Public Schools in Woodstock, Va., were interviewed this week.

They were chosen from a group of seven candidates who had been narrowed from a reported field of 78 applications submitted to Ray and Associates Inc., the Cedar Rapids, Iowa,-based professional search firm contracted by the schools.

The candidates are part of the second superintendent search conducted by Ray and Associates in the past year. The first process ended in December 2012, when two finalists withdrew their intentions and a third didn’t get a second interview.

The school board started a national search for a new superintendent a year ago in April when superintendent Tom Bailey announced his retirement. Bailey retired on Dec. 31 after 10 years as the city’s school chief.

During a January meeting, the school board hired former superintendent Robert Smallridge as an interim superintendent and Smallridge agreed to work through June 30.

Borchers has been the superintendent of schools for Rockwood School District since 2010 and served as associate superintendent of secondary schools in Anoka-Hennepin Schools, Coon Rapids, Minn., from 2008 to 2010.